Six years ago lee baker of phoenix, Ariz, spent time in a wheelchair following a car accident. She says the frustrations of restricted mobility were never more apparent than when she dropped something on the floor that was just out of reach.

“My skillful husband [Bill Baker] fashioned a pair of oversized tweezers out of two yardsticks and a metal spring so I could retrieve dropped pencils, pens, and other errant objects,” she says.

When she graduated to a walker, she discovered that carrying a cup of coffee in one hand while trying to manipulate the walker with the other just did not keep her stable enough for safety. “So my husband hooked an old bicycle basket over the front of my walker and found me a plastic-lidded commuter mug that kept liquids from spilling,” she says.

Had Baker’s accident occurred today, resources to solve her problems would have been just a keystroke away.

Dynamic Living Inc, an online Internet store based in South Windsor, Conn, stocks hundreds of products that promote a convenient, comfortable, and safe home environment. An array of “reachers” can retrieve items, such as Baker’s pens and pencils. The heavy-duty model safely fetches shelved canned goods and objects as large as a 1-quart bottle. A soft, adjustable strap-on bag could have been attached to Baker’s walker to tote her coffee mug as well as a cell phone, small book, and other items.

Necessity Breeds Invention
Andrea Tannenbaum, Dynamic Living’s founder and president, says the idea came to her as she sought out products that would allow her mother, who has Parkinson’s disease and impaired vision, to remain independent as long as possible. It was a difficult search.

“People didn’t treat me reasonably,” she says, “They were rude, they weren’t nice, the product frequently was shabby and cheap, not good quality merchandise. When I had so much trouble finding products for my mother, I felt strongly, in my bones, that I could do this better.”

Defying the advice of business guides that warn against entering a business you do not already know something about, she developed Dynamic Living with dogged persistence.

The company has no retail store and does not promote mail orders. It relies strictly on its online catalog (www. dynamic-living.com). Tannenbaum, who admits to having no previous experience in creating Web sites, designed the company’s Internet home herself. “It’s not as hard as people think,” she says. “You just need to get yourself the right tools, and it does not have to be a million-dollar investment.”

The online catalog is divided into easy-to-understand categories, such as “Around the House,” “Bed and Bath,” and “Accessible Home.” The catalog’s “Unique Products” category has a subcategory called AZtech, a community-based enterprise that is run by and for persons with disabilities. AZtech works in partnership with various departments at the State University of New York at Buffalo to develop and bring to market new assistive technology products.

Tannenbaum says that AZtech had no reliable way to assess how the public would respond to its products, so Dynamic Living agreed to put a few on its Web site to measure customer interest. “We have had a total of five AZtech products over the last 2 years,” she says. “They include a refrigerator door opener that breaks the seal so the door opens more easily, [a device] that provides leveraged assistance when pumping gas, a fold-down seat that attaches to a wall when extra seating is needed, and a guide to help insert tapes into the VCR.”

The company also works with for-profit vendors to help them determine product niches that are going unfilled, as well as marketing ploys that could make a new device successful. By defining opportunities and suggesting improvements to existing products, Dynamic Living benefits both manufacturers and customers.

High-Tech Mom-and-Pop
Beginning 5 years ago with 40 products and expanding to almost 400 products today, Tannenbaum still characterizes her company as small by all standards. “It is like a mom-and-pop shop on the corner, only our corner happens to be the Internet,” she says.

About 90% of orders are placed online, while the remaining 10% come from referrals, recommendations, and public relations efforts. Customers without Internet access may request information on specific products, which Tannenbaum prints from her Web site and mails out. A small catalog is a future possibility, but not a priority, she says.

With a staff of four, the company inventories about 80% of its product line. This includes smaller items and products from manufacturers that are more difficult to access, so there is no delay in getting products to customers. Suppliers and manufacturers drop ship the remaining 20%, mostly larger items such as Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant dishwashers, washer/dryer combinations, bath accessories, and lift chairs.

The Dynamic Living customer can be just about anyone, Tannenbaum says, because the market varies. Many end-use consumers shop the site, as do the end-users’ families and caregivers who make purchases on their behalf.

No Typical Customers
An ailment could be temporary, such as a broken arm, or it could be a permanent disability. Many long-term disabled clients are delighted to find a source for products that solve problems they have dealt with for decades, Tannenbaum says. Repeat customers who elect to subscribe also get a free email newsletter that covers topics such as accessible travel, arthritis, and home safety.

Tannenbaum tracks purchases carefully. During the holidays she saw an increase in orders for recreational items like four-deck card shufflers. Amplified telephones, the kind that make both the ring and conversations louder, also were popular. In addition, she discovered that Dynamic Living has a large audience of single-handed customers. As a result, the company now stocks one of the country’s largest collections of products for people who have use of only one hand.

Unfortunately, few items in the Dynamic Living catalog are reimbursable. These are more quality of life products, and Medicare reimburses for medically necessary items, not those that make life easier, Tannenbaum says. “They’ll reimburse on oxygen and beds, for example, but will not reimburse on a fork with an angled handle that helps a person with arthritic hands feed himself. We carry utensils with shafts that twist to accommodate a reduced range of motion. We have a battery-operated sifter so mom can still make cookies. And they certainly won’t reimburse on the card shuffler. These are quality of life issues.”

Tannenbaum suggests that HME dealers look at daily living aids as related to their own business in a perspective of treating their customers as whole people who have lives. “Yes, they need to give [customers] canes and walkers and oxygen tanks, those kinds of typical HME supplies,” she says. “But [their customers] also need to know how to carry that cup of coffee, how to make calls on a phone where they can hear.”

Tannenbaum isn’t in a hurry to be a mega-company. She has taken her time and grown her company steadily over the past 4 years, searching out new products and helping improve those now in the Dynamic Living line. She says she definitely plans to be around awhile. Her customers hope she is.

Judy Wade is a contributing writer for Dealer/Provider.